NARRATIVE OF THE EXHIBITION

NARRATIVE OF THE EXHIBITION

Knowledge of medicinal plants is one of the basic pillars in the history of humankind: it helped people for millennia and ultimately resulted in the birth of medicine and botany as separate sciences. To preserve and share this knowledge, people have been creating herbaria and herbals – and this exhibition is dedicated to them.

The exhibition is divided in two parts. The first, exterior part, is located in the gardens of the chateau. Panels located there will tell you what herbaria and herbals can tell us. You will learn about their history, how they were created, and what types there are. You will also peek into the world of old physic gardens (gardens with medicinal plants) and learn how herbaria and herbals enter the new digital era.

The external part of the exhibition is supplemented by a sample garden bed with medicinal plants which feature in the two herbaria that were the main focus of our research project: the Broumov herbarium, created in 1595 by Johann Brehe of Überlingen, and Boccius’s herbarium composed around 1766 by Norbert Boccius, prior of the Valtice convent of the Brothers of Mercy.

The second part of the exhibition will take us to the round entrance hall of Kačina. In this unique space, you will be able to admire the original copies of the abovementioned herbaria but also further herbaria and herbals, as well as books on botany linked to Chotek’s library here in Kačina and other rare prints from the collections of the National Museum of Agriculture.  

Come and discover with us the stories of medicinal plants, which have been accompanying the journey of humankind since time immemorial. Let us reminds ourselves what they meant to us in the past and what they can offer today.